POWERS OF TWO: Repetition

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(Powers of Two, Act 1)

electroacoustic music theatre for four singers, two dancers, live video and eight digital soundtracks

Cast

The Woman (soprano)

The Journalist (mezzo-soprano)

The Artist (lyric tenor)

The Man (baritone)

Male & Female dancers

Libretto by the composer

   Sound Example available

Powers of Two : Repetition, as the first act of the opera Powers of Two, introduces four contemporary characters caught up in a web of misdirected desires. They are simultaneously confused and seduced by the virtual imagery and soundscape which surrounds them. When they attempt to communicate with each other, conflicts arise between what is real and imaginary, the visual and the auditory, the arts and the media, same-sex and opposite-sex desire, materialism and spirituality. As the act ends, the characters resolve to pursue their quests elsewhere, while The Woman in her desire for the transcendant singer Orpheus smothers herself.

The libretto is based on poetry from Charlotte Lennox, Katherine Philips, Alfed Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman and R.M. Rilke. The tape is composed solely from sung and spoken vocal material, Pacific Rim percussion, and environmental sounds, all digitally processed (using granulation and resonators) with the composer's PODX system and diffused through Harmonic Functions' DM8 signal processor.

CD excerpt available: In Memoriam A.H.H. on the Cambridge Street Records CD Twin Souls.

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